The Virtual Legal Assistant, Inc. - Aretha Gaskin

Who's the Boss?

When you’re a VA, or any kind of solo entrepreneur, you sometimes feel like you’re in a bubble.

You may have everything running smoothly, your clients are happy and productive, but there are days when you just need . . . . human contact.

Like most VAs who pay attention to the other full-time job, i.e. marketing, I attend seminars and conferences from time to time, and of course, there are necessary client meetings, too.

But some days are just too quiet.  And I was thinking about this when I read this interesting little article in the New York Times about Congressman Anthony Weiner, a serious candidate for Mayor of NYC, and in the meantime in the running for Most Demanding Boss.

Now, I give the congressman credit for a certain amount of self-awareness, but when Marines start to quit on you, maybe you should try easing up a touch.

When I finished reading, I felt a lot better about being my own boss.

Some Days Are Weirder Than Others

Idly surfing the waves of the internet the other day, I realized that while we were all looking away, every single day of the year has been designated for something or someone. 

I’m not at all sure this is a good thing.

Today, for example, as I write this, is May 30.  This used to be known as Decoration Day every year in the US, a day when Southern women “decorated” the graves of fallen soldiers.  It was commemorated every May 30, no matter what day May 30 happened to be.

Then, at some point, holidays like that got nudged to Mondays, and became the final piece in several yearly three-day weekends.  (When they move the 4th of July, we’ve got real problems)

But then, someone got the same notion that has swept through the food industry and many other product categories—if the original was good, 26 variations on it have to be better.

So now, in addition, to more varieties of Coke than anyone can keep track of (“I told you to get me Diet, caffeine-free, zero cherry, not vanilla!), we’ve got Decoration Day becoming Memorial Day, and landing on the last Monday in May and in its place on May 30 we now celebrate Hug Your Cat Day and the ever-popular Compact Disc Day.

It doesn’t stop there.  You should also be aware that this is Good Stewardship Week, and lest you labor under the delusion that May is just simply the part of the calendar that comes between April and June, I will inform you that it is also officially known as Better Sleep Month, Egg Month, Salad Month, Hamburger Month, Barbecue Month, Strawberry Month, High Blood Pressure Education Month, Date Your Mate Month, Military Appreciation Month, Older Americans Month, Photo Month, and of course, Salsa Month.

Confusing, huh?  Not for me.

I happen to know it’s also Peace of Mind Month.

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Rules? What Rules?

Life is a funny thing.  Yes, I mean that the ability to express joy, laugh at yourself and recognize absurdity all point to someone who has a good grasp on reality.  But life is funny also because when it seems to teach you one thing, it rewards you for just the opposite.

School for example, society’s model for life training, is all about conformity.  And yet it is very often the nonconformists who succeed because they are the innovators, the first with the idea, and the gutsiest in promoting it.

In business, and especially for entrepreneurs like Virtual Assistants, and most especially at times like these in America, the only sure thing is a rock-solid belief in yourself.  Which may very well mean saying “yes” when everyone says “no”, and then taking action. 

“…[E]veryone said Sam Walton was crazy to build his stores in small towns.  Almost everyone who has had an idea that’s somewhat revolutionary or wildly successful was first told they’re insane.”

This is a quote from a Fortune interview with Larry Page, Google co-founder, who bemoans the small percentage of risk-takers even at his own forward-looking company.

“Honestly, I’m a little baffled…My experience is that when people are trying to do ambitious things, they’re all worried about failing when they start.  But all sorts of interesting things spin out that are of huge economic value.”

Not only economic, but social, too.  The biggest problems on the planet can be addressed.  It calls for determined risk-takers building momentum with their persistence and eventually, as with the Japanese and the reliable automobile, others are inspired to copy the success.

Who can do it?

“If you look at the people who have high impact, they have pretty general knowledge.  They don’t have a really narrowly focused education…You’d want to be more like Edison.  If you invent something, that doesn’t necessarily help anybody.  You’ve got to actually get it into the world; you’ve got to produce, make money doing it.”

OK, all you virtual Edisons, let’s think big and make everybody’s life a little better.

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Trust

Trust is in the headlines again.

The recently-departed Governor of New York is recently departed because he betrayed the trust of his State and his family.

The newly-arrived Governor of New York, one day after his well-received and rousing inaugural speech, tells the voters through a series of newspaper interviews that both he and his wife have had extramarital affairs.

Yet another author of a best-selling memoir is exposed as a fraud.

The beginning of the major league baseball season brings with it the off-season stories of steroid use and Congressional testimony and public apologies.

A climate of this kind invites and encourages cynicism, and when that is the prevailing attitude, it is hard to make a convincing case for integrity and quality.

There is always skepticism inherent in the initial negotiations of a service provider like a virtual assistant.  You can display your past performance in an expensive website and offer a page full of referrals, but as in most walks of life, you only truly prove your professional trustworthiness by repeated good performance, every single day.

Integrity is the habit of honesty and fairness, thoroughness and striving for excellence.  And it gives you the ability to stand proudly and comfortably behind results that not only benefited your client, but are the best possible proof that you will perform as advertised.

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Personal Speed Limits

Most of us who enter the entrepreneurial life (sound like a religious experience when you put it that way—well, it IS a calling!) are doing so because we’ve got the energy and desire to take the wheel in our careers and get where we’re going now.  So, here comes a post about. . . . .slowing down.

Have you ever been en route somewhere, making good time and suddenly you find yourself at the end of the world’s longest vehicular conga line?  We’ve all been there.

The first five minutes go pretty well, but after that, it’s fairly normal for the nervous twitches to start:  look at the watch, stare out the window at the side of a factory building or the superstructure of the bridge you’re on, then comes a mild invective under your breath, radio gets turned on, only to tell you that a truck spilled something really messy on the road you’re on, which prompts some muttering, followed by another look at the watch, the radio going back on, and at some point, some genuine, audible curse words….

Well, I’ve been realizing it’s all about as helpful as wishing you were dry while you’re standing in the ocean.  Face it—you’re going to need a towel at some point.

I try to look at the unexpected delays that try to poison your entrepreneurial plan of productivity as timeouts.  A little breather on the sidelines to think about the next play, or just a time to pat yourself on the back for the last business touchdown or bit of career progress, no matter how small.  Just like the traffic situation just beyond your windshield, you should be thankful for even the merest movement forward.

It’s also a time to resolve to keep our cars within speed limits. Remember:  It’s carrying pretty important cargo, and there are so many tragedies that occur on our roads because somebody thought they were losing a race against the clock.

So be safe and happy.  That’s the fastest way to the success you’re planning on.

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The Stevies

The 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business were announced the other day in Las Vegas.  The Stevies are annual awards honoring women executives and entrepreneurs worldwide.

I’d like to send particular congratulations to some of my fellow small entrepreneurs and blogger winners.

The Best Entrepreneur providing business services, with under 100 employees was JBK Associates of Englewood, NJ (hardly a category didn’t have a winner from my home state), headed by executive search entrepreneur Julie Kampf.  Julie uses three decades of sales and marketing experience to present client companies with prefect-fit, top drawer executive candidates.  JBK is a previous winner for Best New Company.

The Best Executive for service businesses with under 100 employees was Maki Nakamura Bara, managing partner and co-founder of Oxford Lodging Advisory and Investment Group LLC.  Ms. Bara has worked with over 100 properties in the lodging, conference and convention industries, advising them on redevelopment and repositioning in the marketplace.

The Best Young Entrepreneur was Lauren Berger, the “Intern Queen” from Los Angeles, whose blog is titled “A Savvy Start”, and whose expertise is drawing on her extensive personal experience serving as an intern to provide interns for companies.  23-year old Lauren parlayed a string of internships into a wealth of business experience that eventually became a multi-faceted career in marketing, writing and promotion.

The Blog of the Year was the innovative “Content is Queen”, by Anna Murray, president of e-media at tmg-e media in New York City, which tracks the trends and developments in content on the Web.  Anna is a summa cum laude Yale graduate who discusses branding, strategy and the world of words on the Web in a simple, authoritative format.

Congratulations to all my hard-working colleagues!

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Laughter

During some of those long days as an entrepreneur, you just need a good laugh.  Like today, for instance:

A man goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot.  The shop owner points to three identical looking parrots on a perch and says, “the parrot on the left costs 500 dollars.”

“Why does the parrot cost so much, “asks the man.
The shop owner says, “well, the parrot knows how to use a computer.”

The man then asks about the next parrot to be told that this one costs 1,000 dollars because it can do everything the other parrot can do plus it knows how to use the UNIX operating system.

Naturally, the increasingly startled man asks about the third parrot to be told that it costs 2,000 dollars.  Needless to say this begs the question, “What can it do?”

To which the shop owner replies, “to be honest I have never seen it do a thing, but the other two call him boss!”

You see, now don’t you feel better?  Laughter is the best medicine and being able to look at the lighter side of life makes you healthier and a better virtual professional.  

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In a Rut?

Today’s Quote of the Day on a website I was surfing was: The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

That one’s been quoted a number of ways and attributed to a number of authors but it makes a good point.  Being in either of them mean you’re inactive, not growing, making zero progress.  As Chazz Palminteri’s character expressed it in the movie Analyze This: “Not breathing now.”

However it’s expressed, inertia is antithetical to the life of a virtual entrepreneur.  If you’re not working for a client, you should be working to get a client, preferably a number of clients.  Or taking a class.  Or networking with other entrepreneurs at a local business get-together.

But sometimes we find our wheels spinning but the speedometer’s not moving.  And we wonder how it happened.

Maybe we haven’t made a mistake lately.  When you make a mistake, you’re not failing, you’re renewing your membership to the human race, and simultaneously, you usually learn something.

Maybe it’s time to kick out a fear or two from your life.  Fear is a great immobilizer, and can often be defeated when it’s looked at full in the face or chopped up in little manageable pieces.

Or maybe it’s just that we haven’t reminded ourselves lately that we’re an exclusive brand in ourselves, and what we contribute to our industry and this old world has intrinsic value.

So, up out of that rut, virtual fellow-traveler, we need you.

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What did YOU do today?

He’s in the news again.

He’s usually up at 5AM.

He’s married for 60 years to a woman he adores.

He uses the frequent flier miles he accumulates (and they are substantial) to take his children and grandchildren on Christmas vacation.

He has built the cradles most of his 11 grandchildren slept in.

He built the bed he and his wife sleep in.

He donates all lecture fees to a human-rights organization he founded, and lives off book royalties and real estate income.

He gives Bible lessons every Sunday.

He has won the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He graduated from Annapolis and was a nuclear sub commander.

At 62, he learned to ski.

At 64, he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

At 70, he climbed Mt. Fuji.

This list is by no means comprehensive.

And the other day, 83-year old former President Jimmy Carter was in the Darfur region of Sudan, leading an international group of powerful visitors into the intractable and sometimes irritating politics of that war-torn country.

What did you do today?

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Reading

NPR reports that several years ago British author Ian McEwan went to a London park and gave out free books to see what would happen.

He found that most of the takers were women, who did so enthusiastically.  He found that the men regarded him with “distaste” or “suspicion”.  He was quoted in the Guardian newspaper as concluding, “When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

Like most Virtual Assistants, I suspect, I have trouble blocking out time to read.  I love to kick back for enjoyment, or just to catch up on what other virtual professionals are blogging about or to stay abreast of world events, but those daily 24 hours always seem to run out.

The NPR article went on to speculate about the reasons women devour fiction, and men favor non-fiction.  Is it a different capacity for patience, levels of sensitivity, overall (ahem) intelligence?

Be that as it may, I’ve always valued my reading time, and found it to be very helpful in clearing my mind, focusing my thinking, and providing me with raw material for that next entrepreneurial brainstorm. 

Studies are starting to show while kids are crazy about Harry Potter, young people in general are reading less.

Let’s hope that trend reverses, so that those kids won’t miss out on one of life’s great and most useful pleasures.

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